


the sky was made for us tonight

by Official_Biscuit_Moron



Category: Gintama
Genre: Fireworks, Gen, Introspection, Yorozuya Family, and are happy and have good time, happy birthday stinky loser trash dumb man!, they watch some fireworks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:47:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26936098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Official_Biscuit_Moron/pseuds/Official_Biscuit_Moron
Summary: His heart is bigger than his body; there is something tender, in his lungs and in his throat, that makes it hard to breathe.All he has is this.
Relationships: Kagura & Sakata Gintoki & Shimura Shinpachi
Comments: 19
Kudos: 73





	the sky was made for us tonight

There has never been a heaven waiting for him.

“Come on, Gin-chan!” Kagura says brightly, and takes his hand into hers. Shinpachi hesitates for only a moment before doing the same, on his other side.

He thinks that there isn’t anything after death. It’s blank, empty, redder and deader than his eyes.

“Gin-san,” Shinpachi says, carefully squeezing his hand, “We’re going to miss the fireworks.”

His heart is bigger than his body; there is something tender, in his lungs and in his throat, that makes it hard to breathe.

All he has is this.

“Gin-chan,” Kagura insists, gently exasperated, and then she’s pulling him down the stairs and into the street, Shinpachi getting tugged along behind and grumbling half-heartedly, Sadaharu thundering after them.

If he were a better or a wiser or a less foolish man, he would be able to find the words to tell these kids what they mean to him. If he were the kind of man they deserved, he'd—but—he’s. He's none of those things. He is solely himself; and yet, they are beside him. The only thing he finds himself capable of doing is holding their small hands in his own, aching for all the times before now, wondering why he’s still alive and how he’s still alive and if he’s still alive, because this feels like the something better he’s never going to get.

(If they weren’t holding onto him, he’d be floating away.)

Only, Kagura’s fingers clutch at his painfully tight, threatening to turn his bones to dust, and Shinpachi’s hand is sweaty and clammy. It’s a cold night and there are chills down his back and his arms and he stumbles in the dark, on the uneven Kabukicho street, sometimes knocking into Kagura’s back, Shinpachi sometimes knocking into his. He and Kagura chatter loudly, obnoxiously—if everyone weren’t out to see the fireworks, Gintoki’s sure they’d be waking up half the town. Sadaharu has tried to nibble his head off at least twice in the last few minutes. Gintoki knows that this is far from perfect.

He also knows that there is nothing and no place that is better than this.

Through the sweet ache in his chest, through the tenderness in his throat and the hot pressure behind his eyes, he feels a laugh bubbling up and out of his mouth. It sends a strange rush through him. 

He has had to learn how to be human, again. And he has found a place where his dead eyes become brighter, where his teeth are bared in a grin, not a grimace, where his heart is open and free, where he doesn’t float away, caught on a breeze, because there are hands holding his. There are a hundred hands intertwined with his own, a hundred hands pushing him back up when he falls.

“Gin-chan, stop laughing so much! You sound like that space idiot, yes?” says Kagura, her excruciatingly strong grip somehow tightening, and Shinpachi’s hand nearly slips out of his; he looks over his shoulder and sees that Shinpachi’s smiling, but in the way he learned from Gintoki, lopsided and unashamedly gleeful. All crinkled eyes and brightness. Kagura cackles joyfully, breaking into a run—Sadaharu takes her lead and his already impossibly loud footsteps become impossibly louder—and suddenly they’re at the river, scrambling down the hill beside the bridge. Free seats for a free show. “ _Kagura-chan!_ ” Shinpachi screams fearfully, and Gintoki laughs again, and it mixes with Kagura’s cackling and soon with Shinpachi’s tentative giggles. The grass is soft and crisp, cool, when he falls onto it, Sadaharu curling up behind him, Shinpachi falling next to him and both of them grabbing frantically at Kagura to stop her from tumbling into the water. She settles with an impressively loud thump on Gintoki’s other side, eyes wide and full of a bright, blazing blue fire. He hopes it never goes out.

Kagura bellows, directly into his ear, “Be quiet, Gin-chan, the fireworks are starting!”

“Why do I need to be quiet for that, huh?” he says, unable to wipe the grin off his face. “You're the loud one, I wasn’t even saying anything.”

“Just shut up, yes, Gin-chan?”

“Yeah, Gin-san, shut up!”

“Arf!” adds Sadaharu.

“What the hell? Patsuan, Sadaharu, you too? Why’re you guys ganging up on me? Respect your elders, damn brats!” Gintoki ruffles their hair with all the strength his elderly limbs can muster, but they just shush him and slap his hands away.

He opens his mouth to scold them again and the first firework crackles into the sky.

It tears at the air, shoots up, and stalls.

A tremendous _bang,_ and then planets are blooming above them, galaxies are materializing and falling away, pulling pinks and greens and reds out of the clouds, drenching them all in bright, distant light, pouring vividly out of the sky and reflecting in their eyes and on their skin. Dying them every color of the rainbow. With a sound like rain, blue stars burst in and out of existence. Then orange, then white, painting the river blinding and smooth and the grass in sharp, silvery strokes. 

Kagura gasps dramatically at every firework, pointing to each of them in turn and shouting at Gintoki to “ _look,_ Gin-chan!” His arm starts to hurt where she’s shaking it in excitement. Shinpachi laughs delightedly, the light glowing off his lenses, yelling at both of them when he sees one he particularly likes. Whenever a giant Sadaharu blazes into view, all three of them scream with amazement; his arrival is equally well-received by the real Sadaharu. He’s followed by a brilliantly orange Justaway, and the Justaway is followed by Elizabeth, whose yellow beak beams benevolently down at them—Gintoki hopes she and Zura, wherever they are, saw that one. He imagines Zura’s somber expression breaking into one of pure, excited joy, his shoulders shaking with obnoxious laughter. His chest feels warm.

Twenty minutes of firework-watching later, Shinpachi’s eyes are starting to droop, and Kagura and Gintoki are mocking him for not being able to stay awake; "Little kid," Kagura chortles, to a supportive chorus of jeers from Gintoki and Sadaharu. Ten minutes after that, Kagura’s enthusiastic exclamations have died down to half-hearted, sleepy murmurs, and the fireworks have died down to soft, occasional flares. A bright pink bubble bursts, showering them in rose-colored light. Kagura yawns and Shinpachi’s arms fold peacefully across his chest. The sky is dark, quiet, but bright, somehow—cloudless and infinite.

When Gintoki leans back against Sadaharu's fluffy stomach, Kagura and Shinpachi, oddly deliberately, tip over to rest against his shoulders. Sadaharu snores gently behind their backs, soft and warm and steady as a mountain. His eyelids feel heavy, but he keeps them open. For just a minute.

He half expects Tatsuma will reach out to him from the stars, laughing, or that Takasugi will float in on the breeze to whisper threats in his ear. He thinks he sees Zura smile in the distant, fiery lights of Kabukicho, in the glow of the river, in the brightness of the moonlight on his skin.

Gintoki feels ever tethered to the earth—but, really, there’s nowhere else he’d rather be.

**Author's Note:**

> the title is from mia dyson's "The Passenger". happy birthday, strawberry milky man!


End file.
